For those of you who might be new to the sport of Rally Obedience, I have provided, the
Introduction to the Second Edition that is included in the present 3rd Edition of Rally-O. I have done this
because this Introduction gives a bit of the history and reasons for the development of this sport. It also
provides an excellent overview of what Rally Obedience is.

The name Rally Style Obedience has been adopted for this concept of Obedience
training and competition because of the use of directional signs to guide the handler throughout
the performance in a manner somewhat similar to the sport of Rally Car Racing. As you have
seen in the title of this book, we use Rally-O as a nick name for the sport. The directional signs
are numbered and arranged sequentially in the form of a course with a variety of turns to contain
it within the boundaries of the ring, and start and finish lines. The team of dog and handler heel
from sign to sign, and perform the exercises indicated by the sign at each location. Each
directional sign, or exercise sign as they are more commonly called, is composed of a code
name for one of the Rally exercises. (A list of the exercises may be found in Chapter 1.)
Except for giving the handler clearance to begin the performance, the judge gives no further
orders or directions as the handler directs the team through the course. The judge moves along
with the team scoring the performance. Heeling on the course between the exercise locations is
judged as a part of the total performance.

The construction or design of the course, in all probability, may vary from trial to trail in
several aspects. The selection of exercises used in a course design, the sequence in which the
exercises are arranged, and the path or outline of the course that the team is directed to follow
throughout the performance may vary with the creativity of the course designer; at Rally trials,
the courses are designed by the judge. However, the exceptional feature of Rally Style
Obedience is the allowance of handlers to communicate with their dogs, both verbally and with
hand signals, at any time and as often as desired throughout the performance. This may be in
the form of praise or various types of commands to aid the dog in performing the exercises.

The continuous performance of Rally-O uninterrupted by directions from the judge,
relative freedom in the selection of exercises, the sequence of their arrangement in the course
design, and the outline of the course, along with the ability to communicate with the dog
throughout the performance are all characteristics that I proposed in the establishment of the
very popular sport of Dog Agility and that are adopted here as the foundation of Rally Style
Obedience. With the incorporation of these characteristics into Rally-O, one additional change
from traditional Obedience was needed for a Rally program to become successful. A departure
from the precision based method of scoring traditional Obedience was critical. I will discuss this
point in more detail Chapter 3, Philosophy and Concept of Judging Rally Obedience.

In the February, 1999 volume of Front and Finish, the article in which I first described
the Rally-O concept, I expressed the hope that Rally would become an Obedience program that
emphasized fun and excitement for the dog and handler by providing a more "natural" approach
to the performance. More natural as contrasted with the highly artificial performance of
traditional Obedience. However, like traditional Obedience and nearly all other sports, Rally
trials are competitive events governed by a set of regulations, and thus, must be evaluated and
scored in accordance with those regulations to determine the level of success or failure of the
participant. Rally is not a pass/fail event as, for example, one might consider a search and
rescue team that is either successful or unsuccessful in finding a missing person.

ln Rally, the parameters for scoring are set to serve the objectives of the program. It was
my belief that a method of scoring that would best serve those objectives would allow handlers
to focus their concentration on undertaking an enthusiastic, energetic, animated performance in
which the handler and dog were able to truly enjoy working as a team. In order to promote this
type of performance, it seemed necessary to provide some relief from the intense concern for the
exact precision necessary to attain the "theoretically perfect performance" promoted and sought
after in traditional Obedience.

When working as a team in drug detection, police service, search and rescue, etc., the
handler's responsibility is to provide help and encouragement to the dog to keep the dog focused
on the job at hand. Thus, incorporating this concept in Rally-O also tests the human partner of
the team by evaluating his/her ability to handle the dog to the best of the dog's ability to
complete the task. Precision in the dog's general movements does not add to, or take from the
final accomplishment of detecting drugs in a suitcase in an airport or finding a lost person in an
avalanche. I realize that the dog must be very precise in performing certain skills but it makes
no difference in the final results whether or not, for example, the dog sits straight in heel position
when indicating the presence of contraband in a suitcase in an airport.

Before I go on, I had better explain that I know what traditional Obedience is all about,
how it works. I have been training and showing dogs in this sport for almost 40 years. It is
where my roots are in this fascinating hobby of dogs. Many in the fancy believe strongly in
traditional Obedience; I am one of them. However, I also believe that there is an increasingly
large number of people with interests in obedience who are looking for an alternative program. I
believe Rally should provide the handler the option of training for precision to develop a basis for
entering traditional Obedience, or training with the Rally philosophy and having the opportunity
of showing throughout a complete stand-alone program.

But back to the topic we were discussing. The most direct way to eliminate the
necessity of exaggerated precision in the performance was to adopt the philosophy that all errors
that would be scored as ½-point deductions in traditional Obedience would not be scored in
Rally. In other words, only errors that would be scored at least one full point in traditional
Obedience would be scored in Rally; errors that would be scored ½-point in traditional
Obedience are not scored in Rally.

Rally-O has enjoyed immediate interest and support that has continued to grow since the
publication of the Rally concept in February 1999. Many of those supportive of Rally have
become dissatisfied with traditional Obedience. There may be many reasons for this, some real,
some contrived. However, it appears that the primary explanation for the failure of entries in
traditional Obedience to keep pace with the growth in other aspects of the dog sport, specifically
Agility, is that Obedience is not as much fun. When those new to the sport of dogs are
considering the direction their interests might lie, and they see Agility on the Animal Channel
and compare it to Obedience......, well, you know the story. I know that there have been articles
published that indicate traditional Obedience is holding its own and actually shows minor
increases in entries in the advanced classes but not the Novice Class. However, when
compared to the magnitude of interest in Agility (have you ever hear of an Obedience trial
closing with 300 entries within an hour after entries are accepted?), one can only conclude that
traditional Obedience has a problem. This problem of a stagnate interest in traditional
Obedience is the original stimulus that prodded me to spend that noon hour in December 1998
to develop the basis for the Rally program.

It was my hope that Rally would stimulate a general interest in obedience training and
that those with more competitive interests would eventually become involved in traditional
Obedience. However, I never thought of Rally simply as a stepping stone to traditional
Obedience. Looking back to those first four articles published in Front and Finish during the
spring of 1999, I presented some ideas of how the exercises of the Open and Utility classes in
traditional Obedience could be performed following the general concepts of Rally. I believe there
is a place and a need for Rally as a stand-alone program. After obtaining titles in Rally, some of
the more competitive people, without a doubt, will continue on into traditional Obedience. But,
from the many comments I have heard, many if not most, will find other objectives to pursue.
Why force people to make this choice? Regardless of whether or not Rally is established as a
stand-alone program with advanced classes, highly competitive people will enter the traditional
Obedience program, but - my guess is that many of them will also continue in Rally. Figure this
out in terms of entries in "obedience" as a whole. The development of advanced Rally classes
would provide a way for those who move into traditional Obedience to continue in both venues,
as well as providing a means for those who would shun traditional Obedience to continue in
Rally Obedience. Although some may not agree with me, it seems advantageous that the
primary objective here should be to stimulate and provide a means for maintaining interest in
"obedience" per se, be it traditional Obedience or Rally Obedience.

Rally Obedience is in its infancy; in many ways it is reminiscent of Agility in its early
stages of development. Performances today are very different from those when Agility was
becoming established. Improvements in training methods and handling have made great
differences in the performances. I believe that a similar sort of evolution will occur in Rally that
will prompt the development of advanced classes beyond the novice level and the establishment
of a stand-alone program with advanced titles. This would enable those who prefer the Rally
concept to be able to continue working toward advanced titles in a manner somewhat similar to
the traditional Obedience program. But for this to happen, those with such interests will have to
let their wishes be known to the various venues that have adopted Rally as a part of their
performance events.

At the present time, Rally Obedience consists of three levels or classes. The first of
these is performed with the dog on-lead, while the 2nd and 3rd levels are performed with the dog
off-lead. There are 29 exercises from which 15 to 17 may be chosen to be included in the
design of Level 1 courses. Seven additional exercises have been added to those first 29 for a
total of 36 exercises from which 15 to 17 may be included in Level 2 course designs. Level 3
course designs may be constructed with 15 to 17 exercises selected from the 52 total Rally
exercises. However, there are some requirements in the selection of exercises in Level 2 and
Level 3 course designs to help ensure a certain increment of advancement in difficulty in each of
these classes. (Note that some additional minor changes have been made in the 3rd Edition
that alters the numbers sited above.)